After stepping in a giant pile of poop last week, Marvel's re-formed band of merry mutants could really use a hug. They get two this week: one from Warren Worthington (Liam O'Brien) whose dad foots the bill for rebuilding Xavier's school and another from Emma Frost (Kari Wahlgren) who claims she knows how to find the missing Charles Xavier. Wolverine (Steve Blum) is skeptical of her intentions, but Cerebro won't operate without a telepath and without Cerebro, missing bald geniuses have a way of staying missing. Frost uses the machine to pinpoint Xavier's location: Genosha, now serving as a haven for mutants under Magneto (Tom Kane). That's enough to darken Wolvie's mood another few degrees, but it does give him the leverage to get Cyclops (Nolan North) out of that manky apartment and back into the game.
Arriving on Genosha in a barely rebuilt Blackbird, the X-Men soon earn the unwelcome attention of their host, who's constructed his headquarters out of several tons of ferrous pig iron. Another serious X-beating at the hands of an old foe ensues before Magneto relents and shows them Charles's comatose body… alive but without any brain activity at all. Magneto allows them to take Xavier back to New York, where he makes limited psychic contact with them from twenty years in the future. Things look bad on his end--really bad--and the only way to prevent it, Xavier claims, is for the team to stay together under Wolverine's leadership.
More great interplay between beloved characters crops up this week, building on the Wolverine/Beast dynamic from last week's episodes. The topper is Kitty Pryde's (Danielle Judovits) obvious dislike of Emma Frost, loosely inspired by Joss Whedon's brief run on the comic books. Pitch-perfect characterizations come in the form of both Frost and Magneto, and patterning Magneto after Ian McKellan's performance in the movies is a great call. The Blackbird looks snazzy, Forge (Roger Craig Smith) is tons of fun, and Wolverine's continuing struggles as leader make an intriguing dynamic which continues to bode well for the series.
Not much. Xavier's position in the future--able to make only intermittent contact with the X-Men of today--is a tad convenient, but it also provides a golden opportunity to engage in various forms of "Days of Future Past" coolness. The increasing number of team members is also cause for mild concern (how much are they really going to be able to do with Iceman?), though it hasn't reached critical mass yet.
The finale to the three-part premiere sets the bar fairly high after the promising-but-flawed parts 1 and 2. The stakes have been defined, the various players established, and the possible story arcs set up in a number of intriguing directions. Nothing left to do but sit back and see if the show's producers can keep the ball rolling. They'll get their next test in a week with Storm and the Shadow King.
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(how much are they really going to be able to do with Iceman?)
IIRC Emma Frost brought out Iceman's latent abilities in the X-books. Maybe they're going to use that in the show at some point maybe?